Soleil

by Jacqueline Garlick

  Eyelet lands with a thump ahead of me, narrowly striking her head on a rock. “Look!” She heaves in a breath, staring past me at second something rising out of the mist. It causes the earth beneath us to shudder with so much rage that we are momentarily tossed apart. Clawing our way back together, we cling, and tremble as out of the inky mire at Smrt’s back, an even more deadly contraption shows itself, expanding up out of the black, pit of Embers. A second, mechanical monster, even larger than the first—Smrt’s version of the Great Illuminator.

  It is in every way, exact, minus the original’s shattered Crooke’s Tube. Cobbled together out of junk, it pushes skyward, toward the heavens— a rusting, rattling heap.

  Soon it’s dwarfs the trees.

  In place of the missing Crooke’s tube sits the dreaded weather capsule, the deadly one from Sir Hatter’s mad tea party—the perfect glass conductor. Inside, churns a world-ending nightmare, itching to explode

  “No.” Eyelet gasps shaking her head, her eyes filling with tears. “No, no, no, no, no!”

  The structure groans and screeches, riffling upwards as if it has no end, chafing as it breaks through the cloud on its massive expandable legs. Two brass bars protrude from the front of it, electrified current snaking between. The great glass capsule shifts in its cradle, tilting toward the sky.

  My eyes shift to Smrt, inside the bubble, a fuse box in his hand, the plunger looming just outside his thumb.

  “No.” Eyelet gaze lights on him too. She tries to rise to her feet.

  Smrt plunges the button and a set of giant snaggled wires stretching the length of the creaking Illuminator crackle and spark. “Good, God, what has he done?”

  Metal disks inside the steel cabinet spin. They whir, and moan and whistle. The metal monster trembles in place, as Smrt’s laughter booms. I haul Eyelet to her feet.

  “Run!” I shove her ahead of me on wobbly feet.

  “That’s it,” Smrt hollers at our backs. His grainy voice chills my spine. “Run! Like the insignificant mice, you are. Run, run, run!”

  Over my shoulder, the Ringmaster’s gun shifts into place. He yanks back on the controls.

  I grab Eyelet’s hand, and burst sideways through a tangle of the trees hoping they create enough cover, as the robotic beast jerks forward, and stomps across the ground. A shower of bullets tears up the path behind us. “Go!” I shove Eyelet ahead of me through the thicket of trees. “Run that way!” I shout, and go the other.

  The ringmaster deploys another round of ammunition. He’s trained his guns on me. I dodge the spray of bullets, high stepping over them.

  Smrt and the ringmaster’s chorus of static-stilted laughter grates my spine. Bullets fly, puncturing the earth all around us. What’s he doing? He could kill us if he wanted to. Instead, he’s just toying with us.

  “Eyelet!” I twist my head seeing her streak through the trees next to me, coming dangerously close to being hit. She turns and doubles back, narrowly escaping his next strike. But still he doesn’t hit her.

  She’s what he wants. He needs her blood.

  “Dance!” Smrt shouts. “Dance, my little puppets, dance!”

  Bullets fly at my heels. They ricochet off trunks of trees, preventing me from getting to Eyelet.

  “Urlick!” Eyelet shouts, ducking.

  The ringmaster hangs out his window of his protective bubble, a weapon trained on her back. A steamtaser. They’ve no intention of killing her, just capturing her.

  No! My throat constricts. No. No, no, no, no! I hurl myself forward, toppling over my own feet and down onto my knees, then pop back up again. “Eyelet!” I shout, through the blur of uncoiling wire.

  She turns to face me. A spark of white light crosses her gaze.

  “Nooooooo!” I race faster, as the sailing pronged-probe closes in on her.

  Eyelet jerks left then quickly forward. The deadly prongs of the steamtaser lodge into the side of a sapling, sizzling its bark black.

  “Confound it!” Smrt fills the air with angry bullets, his fists raging, as Eyelet runs on. Bullets bounce off the trees, turning the bark into lethal shrapnel.

  I throw an arm over my head and race toward her. “This way.” I catch her by the hand and drag her away with me.

  Debris ricochets off a limb, catching Eyelet in the thigh. She groans and drops to her knees.

  I yank her back up. “Come on.”

  “I can’t,” she shouts. Blood trickles from the wound. “I can’t do it.”

  Smrt lays down another round of gunfire behind us. He could easily just light up these trees with one round of mortar fire and kill us both—he has the power—but he chooses not to. I know what he wants. He’ll be upon us soon. I will not let him have her.

  I apply pressure to Eyelet’s thigh. Blood bleeds crimson through my fingers. I drag her in behind a tight row of trees. “We have to keep moving. You have to get up.”

  “I can’t.” She coughs, then gags until she throws up. She looks at me with worried eyes. “I can’t run. I can’t breathe.” A wheeze overcomes her. She coughs again. Bending over, she breaks into repeated spasms, until there’s blood. Lots of blood. What is this? How has this happened?

  Eyelet looks up, all the fire gone from her eyes.

  “It’s all right,” I say—

  “No. It isn’t.” She’s shaking. “You have to go on without me.”

  Bullets graze the bark again, causing us both to jump. I look toward Smrt and back to her. “Never.” I scoop her into my and toss her over my shoulder.

  “You’ll never be able to run fast enough carrying me,” she shouts.

  “Ye have little faith, woman.”

  I wait for a lull in the bullets and bolt through a thicket of more densely growing trees. Though I’ve no idea where I’m running to.

  Another round of gunfire lights up the clearing beside us. I veer to the left. Bullets riddle the tree trunks, igniting them into a firewall behind us.

  They must have upgraded their ammunition.

  Flames engulf the forest now. The smoke makes it hard to breathe. It helps to conceal us though, which infuriates Smrt.

  He cusses over the megaphone.

  Using the smoke’s rolling curtain to our advantage, I stay tuck in behind a sprawling oak, and stop to rest. Struggling for breath, I catch sight of something on the horizon ahead.

  Something strides toward us, glinting silvery-blue, through the rolling black, tendrils of smoke.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Urlick

  THEY BARREL TOWARD US, Masheck in the lead. The rest of the crew flank his sides, C.L. on cannon-wielding rhino, Iris on a charging elephant next to his side, and Lavinia next to her. Another row of deadly, trumpeting pachyderms follows close behind. It’s unclear who’s aboard them at first, but then as they get closer, and the swirling ground fog parts, it becomes vehemently clear. It’s the footman, the cook, the groom, and the butler aboard a second row of grunting rhinos.

  Behind them, riding high in the sky, are the maid, Sadar, and Wanda. The girls—

  hovering just above the treetops in their lethally-injected mechanical wasp bombers— and Sadar operating the lone mosquito fighter.

  Masheck raises the trunk of the great steam warrior elephant he’s riding. It bellows, sounding magically tinny, yet dauntingly fierce. He reaches down, deploying a lever at its side, and the massive beast shoots a pair of cannons from its mighty tusks. Cannon fire rockets past Eyelet and I, still hidden among the trees, clear cutting the forest. It lands just short of Smrt in his robotic monster, exploding spectacularly at its feet.

  I duck as dirt showers over me and shrapnel pummels the glass bubble front of Smrt’s robotic contraption. This stops him dead in his tracks long enough to allow me to run. “Are you ready?” I shout to Eyelet, not leaving time for her to answer before I hoof it out into the open clearing, bursting headlong toward the shielding circle the crew has formed.

  The circle is still a good hundred strides head of me, while
Smrt’s about a league behind. My head flicks back and forth between the two as I keep running.

  “Hurry!” Eyelet shouts.

  Smrt pelts the forest ahead of us in bullets, and I slam to a jagged halt. The bullets sink into the earth all around us, stealing my breath. I don’t move again, until I’m sure he’s out of ammo and must stop to reload, then I dash again at the circle, legs trembling beneath me, barely able to keep upright.

  “This way!” C.L. calls us in as I dodge another peppering round of gunfire. Masheck raises his elephant’s trunk and lets off another deadly blast, sending Smrt’s robotic monster wheeling backward again.

  A laugh ripples through my chest seeing Smrt waffling in retreat, over my shoulder. I pour it on and charge the last few feet into the safety of the circle—breathless and thankful.

  “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” I slide to stop at the foot of Masheck’s mighty elephant.

  “Not a bad sight yourself.” Masheck smiles.

  A spray of bullets zip past my shoulder and I duck as they ping off Masheck’s elephant’s head. Eyelet lets out a shriek.

  “And a day earlier than planned,” I say.

  “A good job I am too, isn’t it?” Masheck looks up, firing off another round of stilting artillery, gaining us another few moments of time.

  “Truth.” I smile, dumping Eyelet down onto her feet.

  A mortar shell finds its target and explodes, rocking a nearby tree. Leaves, bark and dirt rain down over us.

  “I see you brought everyone,” I say through the shower.

  “Under much protest.” Masheck eyes the girls sternly.

  “Let me guess. Iris?”

  “She told ’im to sod off, she did.” C.L. speaks up, looking around him, his eyes round as turnips.

  “Good girl.” I wink at Iris, pulling Eyelet close as more artillery fire explodes on the ground.

  “Do you have one of those for me?” I gesture to Masheck’s firepower.

  “Sure do.” He tosses me a steam-cannon and a flame-throwing javelin.

  “And a steed?”

  “I saved you an elephant, sir.” C.L. pulls one up beside him.

  “Perfect.” I slap its steely hide. “I’m feeling a little pachyderm power at the moment. And for Eyelet?”

  Iris drags Clementine out from behind her mount, fully dressed in artillery armour. “Clem,” Eyelet breathes. She whinnies and nods her head.

  Another spray of bullets rifles through the trees cutting off their pleasantries.

  “What is all this anyway?” Masheck looks to our attackers.

  “That, my friends, is the wrath of Smrt re-incarnated,” I say.

  “Or should we say, his evil robotic twin,” Eyelet adds, her gaze sliding onto C.L. “And his sidekick is an old friend of yours.” She jerks her head toward the glass bubble-topped sidecar.

  C.L. squints, his chin jittering. “Bloomin’ blasphemy,” he gasps.

  “Yeah, that about sums it up.” Iris reaches down for Eyelet as I lift her up into the saddle. The two of them share a short sweet moment.

  “She’s been hit.” Livinea cries out, spotting Eyelet’s obvious injury.

  “It’s nothing really.” Eyelet slaps a hand over the wound on her thigh, as she drops down in the saddle. “Just a bit of a nick.”

  “Bleedin’ a lot for a nick,” Livinea looks to me.

  “I’m fine, really,” Eyelet snaps, then breaks into a heavy bout of coughing.

  “Don’t sound fine to me.” Livinea’s voice wobbles.

  Eyelet eyes Livinea hard and takes up Clem’s reins. “I’ll be fine, honestly.” She coughs until she’s gagging again. “Now, let’s get this over with, shall we?” she gasps and snatches the flamethrower from my hand then dons her gasmask. “Ready?” she shouts through the muffler. She looks to me— determination seething from her eyes.

  “Never been more.” I smile and take my mount, but inside a part of me is screaming. I don’t know how she’ll do this. How she’ll ride through this battle like that.

  “Then let’s go kick some greasy automaton ass!” Eyelet shouts and she’s away before I can stop her, raising a victorious arm in the air. “For the people of the Commonwealth!”

  “For the Commonwealth!” I jab the heels of my boots into my pachyderm’s sides, triggering my mechanical elephant’s charge mechanism. Together, we bound across the forest floor, Masheck and the rest close behind, headlong into the battle.

  Eyelet rides in close and leans over, threading her fingers through mine, clasping our hands tightly together, then letting them drift. “To the future.” She tips her chin and smiles wide, then rides on, our hands torn apart.

  For a moment I’m struck hard by their vacancy. The palm of my hand shivers cold without hers. I’m overcome by a strange feeling that maybe, just maybe…we may never have a future—then shake off the thought and chase after her.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Urlick

  I gallop alongside EYELET, trampling brush and branches beneath our feet, great plumes of dust rising at our backs. Livinea thunders along on her elephant to Eyelet’s left. C.L. bounds next to Masheck on his steam-cannon rhino, flaming crossbow poised and ready. Iris flanks Eyelet’s other side, racing along on her elephant, a well, poison-bayonet in her hands. Something about Eyelet being cocooned between us makes me feel better, but I’m still not completely sure of myself.

  “Keep your heads low and your eyes open!” I warn, shouting back over my shoulder to the others, above the zing of incoming artillery. “See that.” I point ahead of me, to the huge storm-filled glass capsule cradled within the massive look-a-like Illuminator that stands at Smrt’s back. “Therein lies the future. Everyone’s future. Whatever happens that capsule must not break.”

  “Right sir.” C.L. answers for all of them.

  Masheck gallops up beside me, his eyes fixed on something else. “What the hell are those?”

  I swing around. Uut of the smoky pit of Embers crawls an army of robot insects—heavily armed, mechanical spiders, and gun-packing millipedes. Hundreds flood up and over the side of the black, belching ravine.

  “I don’t know,” I say, slowing slightly.

  The spiders cock their heads and spew globs of shining spinnerets from their creaking mandibles, casting them at the ground and the trees in front of them, criss-crossing the lines, forming a slimy, tightly knit, basket-woven web.

  “Do you suppose they’re poisonous?” C.L. asks.

  “They are spiders.” Masheck, turns wide-eyed.

  The millipedes rock back on their haunches peppering us in rifle fire.

  We duck and weave, avoiding the onslaught, taking cover behind thick, half-moon, metal-plate shields that rise up from the pommels of our mechanical animal’s saddles. Thank god for that. Bullets that ping off in every direction.

  A cold breeze threads through me. Eyelet’s not on a pachyderm. I look back, our gazes connecting. She smiles, bullets bouncing off her handheld shield.

  “Incoming!” C.L. shouts, drawing my attention away.

  Masheck raises his elephant’s trunk high and yanks back on a lever, blasting the insects with a flaming torch strike.

  “Smrt’s brainchild!” he shouts to me, catching me staring. “Wonder how ’e’s likin’ bein’ on the receiving end of his own invention?” He grins.

  Ahead of us, Smrt’s army of insects advances, filling the sky with their webs. On the ground, metal centipedes pummel us in more bullets, shot from rapid-fire weapons. Our animal’s armor deflects most of it, but some zing dastardly close.

  I swing my head, checking on Eyelet. The bullets are too much for her shield.

  I dive into action, driving toward her, circling in front of Clem to create a shield. “Are you all right?” I shout.

  “Never better.” She ducks as bullets ting.

  “You should turn back.”

  “No way!”

  I wait for a lull in the assault, then straighten in my saddle, activate
the crank gear on my elephant’s helmet, sit back, and spray the insects in a round of flaming dynamite missiles. The missiles zig and zag then burst into fire, confusing the idiot bugs all to hell.

  “How you like that, you bastards!” I shout. It feels so good to be on the dealing out end of things for a change.

  “Look at the movement of their eyes!” C.L. shouts, riding up. “They’s operatin’ on a trackin’ system! As long as they can’t size you up clearly, they can’t kill us. If they can’t, they’re ’armless.”

  “So, we need to keep movin’. And not in straight lines.”

  “Right.”

  “Did you hear that!” I holler back. “Keep it erratic, everyone!”

  One of Smrt’s robotic creatures rises, draws back a bow, and fires. I deflect the arrow with my handheld shield, then take him out with a direct hit.

  A second one tries, and I blast him, too. It’s pumped full of holes, and sways, then regains its balance. He’s tougher than I expect, not so easily taken down. I reload and shoot again, blowing the bug to smithereens.

  A spider tries to eliminate me next, flogging me with bullets. A stray comes close to doing me in, whisking past and nicking my ear. I reach up to deflect the blood. The spider casts a web over my head. I dodge sideways just in time to escape its sticky clutches and instinctively raise my gun, firing off a round of ammo, missing the spider altogether, but make a direct hit to the right foot of Smrt’s mobile fighting unit. My bullet blows a hole through one of its talons and rips open its leg. Steam wafts from the mechanical monster’s insides, hissing and sparking as the machine falters, tips over, and nearly falls.

  Inside his bullet-proof bubble atop the legs, Smrt looks severely shaken. He’s far too close for my liking. One of the exposed wires on his beast’s lower leg bursts into flame and flashes up, engulfing Smrt’s protective bubble in flames. Manning the controls, he’s quick to stomp it out, wide eyes glaring at me through the scorched glass.

  It’s definitely game on.

  “You think you can destroy me?” he shouts. “Well, think again!” His distorted voice warbles grainy through his contraption’s gramophonic speaker, shaking the entire forest. I turn, putting distance between me and his rising weapon, as he whirls his monster around and gives chase. Behind him, hundreds more poison-spewing spiders crawl over the top ridges, glinting silver through the rising black filth.